


Like a Song on the Radio Dial

by liamthebastard



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, M/M, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:52:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7851457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamthebastard/pseuds/liamthebastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will had just wanted to grab a drink, and now he's been thrown off by the most attractive guy he's ever seen. He can't just <em>not</em> talk to the only new guy this town has seen all fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Song on the Radio Dial

**Author's Note:**

> Do not ever let me listen to country or I come up with a whole alternate universe that takes over a week to write out completely bc I kept coming up with new shit for it.
> 
> End me.

Bars are seedy no matter where they are, but they’re especially seedy in a town just south of bumfuck nowhere on the Eastern shore. But in those aforementioned towns, people were used to things going to seed about as soon as tourist season ended. And in a mill-town-turned-tourist-trap, the lone bar at the end of the main (read: only paved) street? Extra-especially seedy. 

But since it was the only bar, it was the one Will found himself in most weekend nights. Sometimes looking for a fight, sometimes looking to get laid (though that wasn’t usually successful due to the bartender’s nasty habit of slipping and calling him _Willa_ every time he managed to chat up a tourist), but usually just looking for a drink. The bartender tolerated his existence only because he was the only guy in town who could get her car running in the winter and drain her basement when it flooded every spring. All on the cheap.

The price Will paid for half-decent whiskey and a night out of his house. Unfortunately for Will, his wandering soul chose to act up the one week in October that was strangely warm, tricking the whole town into thinking it was summer once more. So the bar was packed to the rafters, full of born-and-bred locals and the few tourists that had gotten sucked in by the summer town’s sunny disposition and hadn’t managed to leave when the boardwalk paint started to crack. 

And Will was perched on a bar stool in the corner, nursing his drink and surveying the crowd for someone he _didn’t_ go to high school with. No easy feat at the height of tourist season honestly, and in October? Nigh impossible. But as Will did a final scan of the bar, his eyes settled on someone he’d never seen before. No way he’d forget a face like that. 

This guy, he was like everything Will didn’t even know he liked rolled into one spectacularly unapproachable guy. Thick, curly dark hair that was just begging to have hands run through it, large hazel-grey eyes that Will could see from across the bar, and stubble that Will wanted to feel scrape across every inch of him. 

Of course, the guy also looked so incredibly out of place. He was the kind of guy who belonged in an upscale New York City bar, where everything was chrome and fancy lighting and cocktails full of liquor nobody in Will’s town could pronounce. Not in a bar where half the bulbs were burnt out more nights than not and the only thing that could be considered ambiance was the music played by the local band made of kids from the high school who were damn convinced they were the next Little Big Town, despite the fact that nobody in town except a few of the outoftowners had ever been south of the Mason-Dixon Line. 

In short, the guy looks a little lost, a little confused, and a lot gorgeous. 

Will was gone. 

Before he could talk himself out of it, his legs carried out of his seat and across the bar. 

“Hey,” Will said, a smile spreading when the guy turned slightly to see who was talking to him. 

The guy returned the smile easily, and it hit Will like a punch to the stomach. “Hey,” the guy said, and shit, his voice was all kinds of raspy and deep and Will sort of never wanted to hear anything else, _especially_ not the small-town country band trying to bang out a melody in the corner. 

When Will recovered enough to speak, he managed to remember his manners. “Will, Will Poindexter,” he said. 

“Derek Nurse,” the guy -Derek, Will repeated to himself, kind of awed that this guy was even giving him the time of day, let alone his _name_ \- responded. And Will, in typical fashion, said the first thing that entered his head, even though he _knew_ it was stupid as he was saying it. 

“Well, Derek,” oh and here it was, “I’ve never seen you around here before.” If Will could be in two places at once, he’d find a way to punch himself square in the jaw for _that_ winning one liner. 

As expected, it completely failed to make Derek weak-kneed, but it did make him laugh, and by God that might have been worth it. His laugh was like every great song Will had ever heard, and he couldn’t wait to hear it again. 

“That’d be because I’m new in town, Will,” Derek replied, his smile easy and languid. It made Will feel a thousand times warmer than the whiskey sitting in his stomach. Will raised an eyebrow, encouraging him to talk more. “Just moved in today, thought I’d scope the night life.”

They both paused to survey the bar. Now, from Will’s perspective, it was a pretty busy night. But then he thought about how packed bars had been back when he was in college, how they’d been jam packed by this time of night and no one could hear each other over over the pounding bass and general crowd noise. Then he looked at the bar again, and realized there couldn’t be more than fifteen people in the whole building. 

And he laughed. “Well, it’s an acquired taste,” Will said. “There’s a few other places in town that are decent, you just have to know where to look.” 

Derek turned a heavy-lidded gaze towards Will. “And I suppose you know where to look?” he asked. 

“Well, I might know somebody,” Will offered. 

“Oh, somebody?” Derek replied, his voice wry and his smirk growing by the second. 

“Somebody with a full tank of gas and a night to kill,” Will clarified, shooting a significant glance towards the door. 

Just as Derek opened his mouth to respond, the bartender, bane of Will’s existence, interrupted. 

“Willa, last call, you want another drink, girl?” she asked. 

Will shot the woman a dark look, and without turning to even try and explain to Derek -he’d had too much trouble come from it before, he wasn’t looking for a fight tonight- he stepped out of the bar to calm himself down. If he didn’t, he’d surely do something he’d regret, and that would cause his mother to call him hourly for the next week. 

So instead of punching the bartender right in her bigoted face, Will shook a cigarette out of his pack and lit it up. Technically, he shouldn’t even be smoking, something about it not being the best idea when a person was taking testosterone, but it hadn’t killed him yet, so he was willing to risk it rather than risk punching out some jackass and turning the town even more against him. 

Once he’d calmed down a bit, and let his temper cool a bit, he stepped back inside. He still needed to settle his tab, and now that whiskey was moving towards the end of its time in his body and he really needed to take care of that before trucking out to his place. 

He looked over the bar, trying to find the bartender so he could pay, and instead his eyes were drawn like magnets to where Derek was sitting, deep in conversation with… Emma McCoy. Of course. Well, any slim chance he might’ve had with new-in-town Derek was officially flushed once Emma got to him. 

It wasn’t even that she was gorgeous, which she was, by small-town standards, or that she was smart, which again, true. But it was more relevant that she’d been one of the Good Irish Girls Will’s ma had tried setting him up with when he’d first gotten back from college before he’d explained to her that yeah, she was right, he _was_ gay, he was just… also a guy. Who was into guys. 

It hadn’t been the easiest conversation.

And of course, Emma had been there for most of it, seeing as his ma’s idea of setting Will up consisted of ambushing him during Sunday dinner. She’d watched all of Will’s personal drama unfold in the first person over a steaming pile of mashed potatoes. 

Awkward didn’t begin to cover it.

She was also the one who told the entire town about him, without him okaying it. She was the one who actively championed the Good Christian Values of the town in opposition of Will’s existence, even though it was those same values that had condemned her sexuality only a few years earlier. It had mostly died down by now, but those first five or so years had been actual hell.

So if Will had to choose a person to be talking to the guy he’d just propositioned, the girl who’d been witness to and created some of the lowest moments of his life was not anywhere near the top five. But, fuck it. Not like the guy was anything other than a pretty face and a nice body. It was probably just the fact that he was the first new person in town in a few years that wasn’t a tourist. Will tried to shrug it off. 

He paid his bill, and made his way to the bathroom. On his way out though, he couldn’t help but linger a little closer to Derek’s seat. Not to listen in, he just really had to check his phone and… No, it was to listen in. His mother had raised a nosey little shite, no need to pretend. Derek just looked so _good_ , his cheeks flushed a bit from either alcohol or embarrassment, and God, was Will desperate to know which. 

“Honestly, I’m fine, if I have another I’m sure I’ll get lost going home,” Derek was saying. 

Emma leaned in, a hand on Derek’s arm and chest angled alluringly. “Well, I’d be happy to show you around and make sure you get home okay,” she offered. Will frowned, but kept up the pretense of checking his empty inbox while he waited to hear how Derek responded. 

“That’s sweet, but I actually already know somebody,” Derek said firmly, and Will’s eyes flickered up involuntarily only to get caught by Derek’s brazen stare. It was a challenge, plain and simple. And oh, Will had never had the best self-control, especially when someone dared him. 

Even more so when it gave him the chance to rub his victory in Emma McCoy’s face. 

Will stepped forward, sliding an arm around Derek’s shoulders and point-blank _grinning_ at the shell shocked look Emma shot them. “Ready to roll?” he asked Derek. 

Derek gave him a very pointed look up and down his body before letting a salacious grin span his mouth. “Ready to ride,” he corrected. 

Oh, Lord God in Heaven was Will in for it. He couldn’t wait.

*

Thankfully, Will had only had the one drink, and Derek seemed pretty damn sober, and when Will thought about it, he’d only seen him nursing a singular beer the whole evening. 

“Hop on in,” Will said, crossing over to the passenger side to open the door for Derek, who thankfully seemed more amused than anything else. Derek climbed into the cab of the truck with a few stumbles. Will managed to cover his snort under what he thought was a convincing-sounding sneeze. Derek’s immediate glare said otherwise. He tried to recover, climbed into the driver’s side -much more easily than Derek had, of course- and Derek continued his glare. “You always that clumsy, or are you drunker than I thought?” Will asked, some of his signature snark creeping in even though he was trying to behave.

Thankfully, Derek seemed down to banter. “I don’t know, are you always such a walking cliché?” he replied. When Will, naturally, made an offended noise, Derek talked over it. “C’mon. You drive a literal pickup truck, spend your evening in a bar that can’t see more than thirty or forty people a night _on the weekend_ , and are legitimately blasting country music from approximately five thousand years ago.”

“Well, you pick a station. Good luck getting any out here though, this is the only one that’s local,” Will said, in absence of any actual rebuttal. They spend maybe ten minutes still in the parking lot, bickering good naturedly over whether it was worse to listen to an extremely staticky indie station from three towns over -which Will wouldn’t have chosen even if it was in HD surround sound- and the crystal clear country station - which, admittedly, was a few decades behind in its alleged Top Hits. “Fine, queue up the CD then.”

“ _The_ CD?” Derek repeated. 

Will rolled his eyes, putting the truck into gear. “I rebuilt this thing. She’s got some flaws, and I’m working on finding her a working stereo that won’t break bank. Until then, I’m stuck with the first CD I stuck in there when I just started working on her.”

Derek’s eyes glinted in the moonlight, something shifting deep inside them. “You built your own truck?” His voice was low, a little rough and rumbling like an engine just waiting to turn over. Will grinned and nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said as they pulled out of the lot and started down the main road. “Started out as a pet project in high school and then became a necessity for college, because like hell was I staying here forever. But then I came back, so now I just tinker with it on the weekends.”

“You don’t really seem like the prodigal son type,” Derek commented. Will took his eyes off the roads for a moment to glance at the other man. He was looking out the window, studying the passing town in way Will recognized but couldn’t describe. His face was mostly in shadow, just the bare outline of it highlighted by the moonlight since they’d moved off the main street and onto one of the gravel roads. 

He was gorgeous, plain and simple. To try and distract himself, Will started up the CD player and tried not to cringe when an old mix CD started up. 

“I’m not,” Will said over the music, hoping that Derek would focus on him rather than the incredibly embarrassing series of songs playing. “But sometimes… sometimes you’ve gotta come back. And this town… it’ll suck you in and keep you if you show any weakness. Fair warning.” He tossed a grin over his shoulder towards Derek. 

Derek smirked back. “I don’t know, it doesn’t seem so bad,” he said. “I mean, small enough to drive a person fucking crazy, but that’s kinda why I’m here, it’s perfect for my work.”

“What do you do that you need to spend time in backwoods nowheresville?” Will demanded. He was driving aimlessly, taking turns at random and just sort of wandering the town, but Derek hadn’t complained yet. 

“I’m a writer,” Derek replied. From anyone else that would’ve sounded _ridiculous_ , but Derek said it so easily, he seemed so confident and comfortable with it, his limbs spilling out across the center console and eyes flashing in the moonlight. 

Will still snorted, just a bit, just because… well, come _on_. What kind of guy _actually_ moves to a small town for inspiration? Derek fucking Nurse apparently. Derek didn’t seem to mind too much, he just let out a laugh, clear and bright, and Will took advantage of a stop sign to let himself get lost in Derek’s smile for just moment. 

“Novels?” Will finally asked. “Or poetry?” He had a feeling he already knew the answer, but he may as well play the game a bit and see where it got him. 

“Why does it have to be one or the other?” Derek drawled. “I write whatever feels right. I’ve just been… stuck, lately. I had a friend that spent a summer here a few years back, visiting some friend of his, and he told me I should come out here. I think it was Chowder’s idea of a punishment, for complaining so much.” 

That name… No way. “Wait, you know Chris Chow, goalie for the Sharks?” 

Derek’s face lit up. “Yeah! He and I met each other when he got signed as a rookie to the Islanders, we lived in the same building. Managed to keep in touch after his move to.”

“Holy shit,” Will laughed. “Chowder and I played together in college, best damn goalie I’ve ever seen. A mess off the ice, but you gotta love him. So that makes you… Holy shit, _you’re_ Nursey?”

“Tell me he doesn’t talk about me,” Derek said, his voice suddenly full of dread. 

“Depends, did you or did you not once get so incredibly plastered that you climbed into his living room through the fire escape and proceed to rearrange all of his furniture in the name of feng shui?” Will responded playfully. Derek immediately buried his face in his hands in shame for a few seconds, then something clicked. 

His head popped up. “Poindexter. Dex. _You’re_ Dex!” 

Will had to laugh. “Yup, that’s me. C’mon, do your worst, I know Chowder has to have some wild stories about me,” he replied. 

Derek smirked. “I did hear about you and a guy your freshman year,” he said. Will felt the floor drop out from under him. Chowder wouldn’t- he wouldn’t, but Will still had a bit of panic running through his veins. “Kicked his ass, didn’t you? Something involving a hockey net and some other D-men causing a distraction. Chowder still won’t tell me what it was over, just that the guy was so freaked after that he literally changed majors so he wouldn’t have to see you every day.”

He took a deep breath, a steadying one. If tonight was gonna go the way Will was hoping it would, he’d have to say something eventually. That was assuming the scene with the bartender or the interaction with Emma hadn’t already tipped Derek off. He’d have to say it. 

“Well, when a guy keeps calling you his girlfriend, just because of your equipment, even after you’ve explained it to him about a million times… Sometimes a guy just snaps.” He tossed a hopefully-confident grin Derek’s way. 

Derek hissed out a heavy breath. “Guys like that piss me off,” he explained, and something tight in Will’s chest eased. 

He smiled, more genuinely this time. “Good,” he said. 

They drove quietly for a few minutes, the CD playing more ridiculous music while they both watched the gravel road disappear under them. 

“This town, it’s a fishing town right?” Derek said, apropos of nothing. Will nodded, trying to figure out how the hell that connected to… well, anything. “That means there’s a beach. Let’s go.”

“What, now? Derek, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but it’s like three a.m. Why would we go to the beach?” Will asked. Even though he wasn’t sure the reason, he started to navigate them towards the access road that would take them to one of the “private” beaches north of the boardwalk and docks. 

Derek grinned. “You know the green flash?” he asked. 

Will rolled his eyes. “Yeah, every fisherman and fisherman’s son knows about it,” Will said. 

“Well, I’ve never seen one, and I want to, so let’s go to the beach and wait for the sun to rise,” Derek suggested. Will sighed, but nodded. 

“We’re gonna have to hike a bit, you gonna be okay?” Will asked, pulling off the gravel road and putting his truck in park. Derek’s shoulders raised at the challenge and his jaw set square and gorgeous. 

“Hell yeah, let’s go,” he said, and started to fiddle with the door of the truck. By the time he’d figured it out, Will had already circled the cab and was there to keep Derek from falling flat on his face as he tried to climb out. “Not a word,” Derek warned as he straightened up, Will’s steadying hand wrapped around his elbow. 

Will smothered his laugh and forced a blank face. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” Will said in a mock-serious voice, which made Derek shove a truly vicious elbow into his ribs. Will doubled over, wheezing, for a moment. “Sonuvabitch,” he muttered. “You always this mean to nice guys who drive you around?”

“Only when they’re gorgeous,” Derek replied easily, and Will flushed scarlet. Thank god for the dark, otherwise it’d just be adding insult to injury. 

“Whatever,” Will grumbled, then cast his mind around for a subject change as they approached the beach. He ended up switching to hockey, which Derek admitted he’d played a little at Andover. He’d stopped when he reached college, so he could focus on his studies, which made Will laugh since the only way he’d managed to _go_ to college was because he’d played hockey. 

Derek had chuckled too. “Yeah, if I’d kept up with it, who knows? We could’ve made a great line.” He managed to make it sound almost dirty, instead of a commentary on their respective skills. 

Will shook his head. “You’d have driven me up a wall in college. You’re too chill, I would’ve killed you in the first week and had to hide your body all semester,” Will said. Derek looked almost offended, kind of like he’d sucked a lemon, and Will started laughing again. 

“Yeah, we’ll I’d have probably pissed you off on purpose. It’s my thing, you know,” Derek finally said, his face still looking sour. Will must not have seemed believing enough, and Derek explained. “You know, piss off the guy you’re into, just so you have an excuse to talk about him all the time. It’s great. Nobody questions a rivalry.”

“Bitty would’ve seen through it in an instant,” Will said. “He was my captain my junior year. Took me and Chowder under his wing when we were frogs, the whole nine. But he had zero patience for that kind of shit, he once locked our co-captains in a closet because they weren’t talking about their feelings.”

The woods were getting thinner around them, and Will knew the beach was approaching. Just in time, the sky was turning that light navy that shifted color just before sunrise. Derek’s voice interrupted his observation, almost making Will jump. 

“That kind of shit never works in reality, does it?” Derek asked. 

The red-head shrugged. “Worked pretty well for them, they’ve been married almost five- no wait, six, years. They just adopted a little girl, she’s sort of the best thing ever,” Will chuckled. He turned, and reached his hand out in warning.“Oh hey watch out-” Too late, Derek had already missed the root sticking up and jammed his foot under it, sending him flying into Will. 

They both hit the ground with an _oof_ , Will trying to catch Derek and shield him from most of the fall. Six feet and change of poet slammed into Will’s stomach, knocking his breath out of him for a painful second. 

Derek leaned up on his elbows, not getting up entirely but taking most of his weight off of Will’s stomach. “Sorry,” he said, sounding not the least bit apologetic. He ran his hand through his curls, and Will was caught. Derek was so… gorgeous, and funny, and a little bit of an asshole. And staring him right in the face, like he could look right through Will and see everything, every little secret and dream. It was intoxicating, and Will wanted to lean in, just a bit, just to see what the night air tasted like where it pooled on Derek’s bottom lip. _Fuck_ , he was gone. 

And because Will could _not_ just let a moment exist, he opened his mouth instead. “You know the flash only happens at sunset, right?” he said, sort of needling to see what he could get Derek to do. Derek laughed, and rolled off of him in a huff. 

“Yeah, cuz that totally makes sense,” Derek said as he stood. He paused once he was on his feet, and offered a hand down to Will, who declined it on principle but gave in once he was up to his knees and let Derek heave him the rest of the way up. “The sun’s the same either way, it should happen no matter what.” 

Will shook his head, partially just to be obstinate, and partially to combat the rush from where their hands were still connected. “Nah, it’s for sure just at sunset. And I’m pretty sure it’s a sign of storms, so you better hope we don’t see it,” he said, literally just grasping at straws. 

A quick squeeze of the hand, and Derek argued back. “Bullshit. It’s all refraction, and science, it’ll happen no matter what if conditions are right!”

“What do you know about science?” Will demanded. “You’re a poet!”

They argued for the last ten minutes of their walk to the beach, and a good fifteen after they’d settled on the shore facing the horizon. Will just couldn’t get over how fun it was, how animated Derek’s whole face got when they bickered. The sky was a soft grey, and going golden-orange near the horizon, so he only had a little more time before Derek would call the night to an end. 

He snorted at Derek’s last monologue on light refraction. “I thought you of all people would understand, but some things a fisherman just _knows_ ,” Will said.

A flush was riding high on Derek’s cheeks, and his eyes were glittering with the challenge. “That’s well and good, but what does a fisherman’s _son_ know? Not a whole lot, it looks like,” Derek said like he was a lawyer delivering closing remarks on a case he was sure to win, and it was so smug it made Will want to wipe the floor with his grin. 

Will had exactly one weapon left in his arsenal. Without warning, he leaned over, caught Derek’s chin in his hand and brought their mouths a hair’s breadth apart. “Some things, Nurse, you just feel in your gut,” he said lowly, and had to smother a victorious crow when Derek surged forward and kissed him soundly. He caught Derek when the other man clumsily crawled over the sand and into his lap, and set his hands steadily around his hips. 

It felt exactly as good as Will had been expecting, maybe even a bit better. Derek’s mouth was warm and damp without being _too_ wet, and _God_ his tongue… Will admittedly lost the plot there for a while. Everything was the chill of the night air around them and the warmth of Derek’s body over his as they fell back into the sand, and the feel of Derek’s -sinfully soft- curls running between Will’s fingers. Derek’s stubble felt fucking _perfect_ against Will’s neck, and when Derek tested the line where his neck met shoulder with his teeth, Will could swear he saw God. 

Not that he’d admit it, not to Derek, but he’d sure as hell give as good as he got until Derek was writhing on top of him, damn near losing his mind, and _yeah_ that was good. 

Neither of them gave any thought to how much time was passing as they got lost in each other until they heard twin squawks coming from their right. Derek pushed away, and Will manfully managed to choke back a whimper of disappointment. He didn’t quite hide the proud smirk that seeing Derek’s flushed cheeks and swollen lips provoked, but he couldn’t really be blamed for that. 

Instead of focusing on that, though, Will turned his head slightly to see who had interrupted them. He didn’t bother to sit up; people in this town had seen him in much worse positions, kissing a boy in the sand was hardly even cause for the gasps. 

“Oh,” he said, suddenly inordinately pleased. “Hey, Emma. Sarah.” He acknowledged Emma’s friend Sarah Walsh with a nod. He didn’t exactly _mean_ to sound so self-satisfied, but it happened anyway, so what was he supposed to do?

Derek was quaking on top of him with suppressed laughter as Emma turned on her heel and jogged off without a word, Sarah trailing behind her. The moment the girls were out of sight, Derek lost it, and started laughing uproariously. Will couldn’t help but join in because, yeah, that had felt pretty damn good. 

When they finally calmed down, Will looked around and realized that somehow, without their intending it, the sun had already risen. “Looks like we missed your flash,” Will observed. 

“Guess I’ll just have to catch it at sunset,” Derek replied without missing a beat, a pleased little smile on his face. 

Will hummed a bit in agreement. “It’ll be tough for ya, though. I’m not sure you’ll be able to find the private beaches on your own,” he said pointedly. 

Derek’s smile turned into a grin as he stared down at Will. “Oh, don’t worry,” he drawled. “I know somebody.”


End file.
